The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the department of telecommunications (DoT) not to invoke the bank guarantees (BGs) of Bharti Airtel for three weeks for recovering Rs 1,376 crore in AGR-related dues of Videocon Telecom Ltd (VTL) which had sold its spectrum to the Bharti group.
The top court, which refused to entertain Airtel’s plea that VTL dues are not payable by it, permitted the telecom major to approach the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) with the grievances.
“The DoT shall not invoke the bank guarantee of Respondent...(Bharti Airtel) for the period of three weeks from today,” a bench comprising justices L. Nageswara Rao, S. Abdul Nazeer and M.R. Shah said in its order.
At the outset, the bench made clear to senior advocate Shyam Divan, appearing for Airtel, that it will not interfere with the earlier judgment.
“We are making it very clear that we will not interfere with the judgment and we will give you the liberty to withdraw to approach the appropriate forum,” the bench said.
Solicitor-general Tushar Mehta pleaded that the DoT was of the view that the TDSAT has no jurisdiction to entertain the plea as the apex court’s earlier order had finality. The court said the parties are free to raise their rival contentions before the TDSAT. In the meantime, it however, restrained DoT from invoking the bank guarantee.
Airtel said a DoT communication of August 17 has directed it to pay AGR related dues of VTL within a week, failing which the telecom body will invoke BGs.
Divan referred to various documents including the spectrum trading guidelines and said that the dues — arising from the adjusted gross revenue or AGR of VTL, the seller of the spectrum — were known at the time of the sale and hence the seller and not the buyer can be fastened with the liability to pay.VTL had sold its spectrum to Bharti Airtel in pursuance of agreements entered into in 2016.
The Bharti group has already paid Rs 18,004 crore in AGR-related dues to the DoT by March 31, 2021 which is much more than 10 per cent of its total AGR dues of over Rs 43,000 crore, he said.
